Fruit and vegetables are delicate and require care to maintain its freshness and taste. And for this reason, you should not leave to chance the careful temperature control and gentle product handling in the chilling or freezing. Koldkraft Refrigeration makes sure that fruits and vegetables stay fresh for longer and retains its premium quality for export.
Fruits and vegetables are cooled to preserve pre harvest freshness and flavor, and to extend storage and shelf life. Cooling at the field before the product is shipped to the market or storage warehouse is referred to as precooling. The cooling requirements of fruits and vegetables vary greatly, as do the cooling methods. Highly perishable products such as broccoli, ripe tomatoes, carrots, leafy vegetables, apricots, strawberries, peaches, and plums must be cooled as soon as possible after harvesting.
The refrigeration capacity of precooling facilities is usually much larger than that of cold storage facilities because of the requirement to cool the products to a specified temperature within a specified time.
Heat of respiration is released during this exothermic reaction, which adds to the refrigeration load during cooling of fruits and vegetables. The rate of respiration varies strongly with temperature. For example, the average heats of respiration of strawberries at 0, 10, and 20°C are 44, 213, and 442 mW/kg, respectively. The heat of respiration also varies greatly from one product to another. For example, at 20°C, it is 34 mW/kg for mature potatoes, 77 mW/kg for apples, 167 mW/kg for cabbage, and 913 mW/kg for broccoli. The heat of respiration of most vegetables decreases with time. The opposite is true for fruits that ripen in storage such as apples and peaches. For plums, for example, the heat of respiration increases from 12 mW/kg shortly after harvest to 21 mW/kg after 6 days and to 27 mW/kg after 18 days when stored at 5°C.
The primary precooling methods for fruits and vegetables are; forced-air cooling, where the products are cooled by forcing refrigerated air through them.
KoldKraft Refrigeration provides blast chillers which are designed specifically according to required load. Our refrigeration units ensure that the product cools down to required temperature as soon a possible without damaging the product.
Deep-frozen food makes it easy to eat healthily and with great variety throughout the year. Fruit and vegetables keep their freshness, color, flavor, shape, and vitamin content after freezing. Studies have shown that properly frozen vegetables are superior to those foods that have been stored for days in home refrigerators for long periods. Deep-frozen foods also represent hygienically flawless products for the consumer, since micro-organisms such as bacteria need above-zero temperatures to grow and proliferate.